Among the leaders of fanatical death cults, Jim Jones was probably one of the more endearing and charismatic: in 1978, at ‘Jonestown’, Guyana he encouraged 910 of his followers to gulp down some grape-flavoured Kool Aid and the rest, as they say, is history (it certainly was for the faithful cordial consumers).

The psychology that went to work in Jonestown isn’t altogether different to that prevailing in Australia’s energy policy arena: blind faith, cultish mantras, such as ‘the wind is free’ and the vicious defence of all that binds the cult together, provides a pretty fair explanation as to how Australia went from an energy superpower to an international laughing stock, in less than 20 years.

The Australian’s Henry Ergas has only written about Australia’s renewable energy debacle on a few occasions, but on every one of them it’s been well-worth sitting…